1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to network element connectors and ports and more particularly to a network element connector assembly including stacked electrical and optical connector interfaces.
2. Description of the Related Art
In a conventional network element (e.g., a router, switch, host, server, client, network-attached storage device or array, or the like), one or more connection points or “ports” are defined on a mounting surface (e.g., a printed circuit board) for coupling the network element to a physical communications medium via a network connector (e.g., a registered-jack (RJ) plug, a gigabit interface converter (GBIC) connector, a small form factor (SFF) connector, small form factor pluggable (SFP), or the like). Each port includes a single connector interface to receive a network connector and its own physical layer protocol circuit or “PHY” for converting data between physical layer and higher layer (e.g., data link layer) formats. More recently, so-called “auto-media detection” physical layer protocol circuits have been developed which enable a network element to detect the presence and/or availability of multiple interfaces (e.g., network connectors) to one or more physical connection mediums.
Such “auto-media detection PHYs” can be used in a failover/recovery configuration including one or more optical connector interfaces and one or more electrical connector interfaces. In one existing network element connector assembly used in conjunction with an auto-media detection PHY, an electrical connector interface and an optical connector interface are coupled, horizontally adjacent to one another, to a mounting surface. Using the described assembly, each electrical connector interface and optical connector interface pair is associated with a network element port and an auto-media detection PHY. However, the number of ports which may be defined with network elements using the described assembly (roughly one-half that attainable with conventional connector non-auto-media-detection PHYs) is undesirable.
In another existing network element connector assembly, a set of “stacked” electrical connector interfaces is coupled, horizontally adjacent to a set of “stacked” optical connector interfaces, to a mounting surface. While the described assembly yields port densities approximately equal to those attainable with conventional non-auto-media-detection PHYs, the described assembly design suffers from a number of shortcomings. Because each auto-media detection PHY must be routed to an optical connector interface and electrical connector interface pair, so-called “cross-talk” interference is frequently generated between adjacent connector interface contacts, traces, or the like potentially resulting in signal transmission errors. Moreover, where there are more than two interfaces within each of the described sets of stacked electrical and/or optical connector interfaces, the correlation or association of individual electrical and optical connector interfaces may not be easily understood by an end user, leading to physical connection errors.